Tea Two with the Friar and Gibraltar

Wednesday August 28, 2013
Campobello Island
New Brunswick, Canada

 

 

We wake up to pea soup fog.

 

 

Not a sign of any water outside our front window.

Darn, thought I might go out early before everyone else is up and enjoy the quiet or maybe the loons. The other end of the campground is fogging away.  I can barely see the swing and the arbor.  I have to zoom in to get this shot.

   

 

 

 

 

Wonder what our new neighbors think of this fog? Isn’t their Airstream great??

 

 

 

What to do given this fog??   HAVE TEA!!

 

We were going to hike the Coastal Trail at West Quoddy Lighthouse but there isn’t any coast to see.

So do we wait until it burns off or we do something that requires no view? How about we’ll go back and have that 2^nd tea with Eleanor that I wanted to do before we leave here.

And so we do.

By the time we get over to Campobello the fog is slowly lifting. We get free tickets for tea at Eleanor’s favorite time of 3:00 ADT and then decide we’ll hike down to see the Friar  since it is low tide and we can walk along the beach. Notice how good I’m getting at this tide business?

 

 

The information says, take the trail through the woods and IF it is low tide you can walk the beach back. Well I’m not taking any chances losing low tide, so we will walk the beach over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Friar is a stone chimney sitting just off a point known as Friar’s head. 

David scopes it out with his binoculars in the picture above.  It’s that little thing in the water at the end of the point.  It doesn’t look too far from here does it?

 

Here’s a zoomed in picture so you can see where we are going.

 

 

 

It’s a great gravely rock shoreline until we get around this corner.

 

 

We find huge cliffs, bigger rocks and hairy boulders.  Still not too bad, we can make it across on the big rocks by just being careful.   But where is the Friar?

 

 

 

This turns into another big rocks and slippery seaweed jaunt.

 

 

Really slippery.  Now what?

 

 

I look back at David.  He’s not coming.

 

I can’t get any closer than this without crawling on the seaweed covered rocks so I’m going to have to give up on the picture angle which shows that the Friar is not attached to the mainland at the bottom as he looks but rather is standing out in the water some feet from the shore. 

 

 

Darn.  Even at low tide, I can’t get over there. 

 

Look VERY closely for my blue shirt and light sweatshirt hanging below my waist in the picture below to see how far away I still am.  What look like little rocks I could walk over on my right are actually totally moss covered basketball  sized stones or larger.   David took this picture from his high vantage point quite a bit behind me.   Can you even see me in this landscape?

 

 

SO I have to give up and go back.  No small task in itself!   David’s taking pictures of me from above.  I’m taking pictures of him from below.

 

 

 

I’m thinking the best views of the Friar must be from the water or on postcards.  There is no view from the “overlook” and a hard won view from the beach.  Buy a postcard or take a boat is my advice.

 

I do make it back around to the stairs.

 

This takes us up to the nice, easy path, through the wildflowers and the woods, back to the visitor’s center.  No sign of encroaching tide.

 

 

 

  

 

 

When the trail crosses a service road we meet up with a local woman coming down it picking blackberries.

 

For jam she tells us.  Or possibly for bars.  She dictates the recipe.  Only she doesn’t remember the exact things that go in the “crumbles”.   She is eager to show us the berries and to tell us about her picking and that the biggest juiciest ones are up out of reach.  But she’s not so eager to have  her picture taken with her berries.

 

 

 

This is Gibraltar Rock not the Rock of Gibraltar.

 

We’re back with two hours to spare before “tea time” so we take a short hike to look at Gibraltar Rock.   This is apparently a huge glacial erratic which was brought here from the highlands of mainland New Brunswick and left about 14000 years ago.   The forest has grown up around it.

 

 

The rock is in the Provincial park we stopped at yesterday.  But we start the hike from the International Park end of the trail since that’s shorter and we do not want to be late for tea.

 

 

 

 

This is definitely a BIG rock but Rock of Gibraltar?  These are Canadians, haven’t they ever seen the real rock??

 

 

 

 

 

It’s big on all sides

 

 

Not sure if this tree is trying to climb the rock or just give it a hug. Any opinions?

 

 

 

 

And now it’s time for TEA WITH ELEANOR!   It’s Tea Two for us.

 

 

We did the tea last week and enjoyed it SO much we wanted to come back again before we leave.  Here’s the post on our first visit with details I won’t repeat if you’d like to read it.  It was pretty much the first thing we did when we got to Lubec.  And it was great which is why we are back to do it again.

 

 

If you are here for the tea, you get to go in the side door directly into the tea room.  Otherwise if you do not have tea tickets but want to view the beautiful Hubbard house  you go in the front door.

 

 

 

 

 

We are seated at five tables around the room all of which have lovely linens and table service.  For pictures of those see my first visit.

 

 

Last post I forgot to take a picture of the excerpts of Eleanor’s My Day columns that are posted on one wall.  But while people are getting seated, I do today.

 

 

Darleen welcomes us to the tea and begins the talk about Eleanor Roosevelt’s childhood while Carolyn pours our tea and brings out plates of delicious cookies.  

And now it’s Carolyn’s turn to present and Darleen does tea refills.  This is a bottomless cup of tea.

 

 

Carolyn is the main reason we have returned for a second visit.

 

 

Of course the delicious tea and cookies don’t hurt either. 

But Carolyn’s presentation is so enthusiastic and she knows the history of the Roosevelt’s so well that it is a joy to listen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She has story after story all told with humor and charm. 

She is telling us about the pictures on the wall and doesn’t even flinch when the typical American tourist knocks on the closed door behind her 30 minutes late and wants to come in.  She and Darleen just bring in a couple more chairs, we all squeeze in, the extra people are accommodated with grace and patience.  Carolyn continues right on. 

Personally I would never have had the nerve to knock on a closed door knowing I am 30 minutes late for an hour long tea and ask to be admitted.  Is that just me???

 

 

 

 

Carolyn takes all the questions you want to ask during the tea itself and will stay as long as you want after the tea has ended.  I ask her about the delicious cookies and if the recipes are available and she takes my email address and says she will send them to me.  Now that’s above and beyond.

 

 

 

The party’s over, almost.

 

By now, even though the tea started at 3:00 ADT, it is 5:00 and these people are finished working.  We must let them go on home.  We walk back outside on the wonderful Hubbard House porch. 

 

 

 

 

Everyone else has gone and we are admiring the view when Andrea and Rachel come from the front of the house.  It turns out, they are from Virginia and have been best friends for years.  Rachel has come to visit Andrea who moved here 9 years ago.  Andrea’s story is really something.   She was living in Montana when she decided to come to Maine.  She picked Lubec, bought her house over the internet and even though she had it inspected, she says she was shocked at the condition when she moved here sight unseen.   Now that takes some gumption.  But all has turned out well.

Rachel has been to visit every year and I ask her if she’s planning on moving up here.  She says she would but she has an elderly mother for whom she has responsibility.  We talk some about the difficulties with that since I have the same power of attorney and medical power for my father.

It’s great to talk to someone who actually lives in the town or has been coming here for years AND is from your former home state.  They give us a lot of information.  The most important of which is, where to find Baileys.   It’s behind the counter in the grocery store along with the cigarettes.  Now isn’t that a hoot.  Keep all those vices under control.  I thought only Penthouse and Playboy were under the counter.    Thanks Andrea and Rachel!    We do meet the nicest people.

 

 

 

Just think, all that careful foot work and I could have just sat here on the lawn.

 

It really is time to be on our way although I don’t think this park ever closes and you could sit here on this porch as long as you want to.  I find that amazing too.  No worries of vandalism?  How nice!

As we start to leave we walk down into the back yard toward the water and what do we see, but the very picture we crawled all over slippery rocks in search of.   There’s the Friar clearly standing just outside the rock at high tide.  Boy does he look small from this distance.  He was huge when I was over there.  I’d still like to see it up close and personal from the water.  Say in my kayak.

 

 

 

 

And now for some parting beauties!

 

This will be our last visit to Roosevelt Campobello International Park so I’ll  leave you with some of their magnificent flowers.  I just couldn’t stop myself from taking pictures of the dahlias on my way out.  The roses are from this morning on my way in.   An amazing place.  Don’t miss it!!

 

 

How big are they really?   Better than three times the size of my hand.